rain
by ChappiRuki
Summary: It's only when he's in contact with water for too long that he can't function, move, or do anything, so of course he's lucky enough to land in a constantly raining place. But he learns that even in rain, there's salvation- in the form of a girl.
1. reflection

Rukia stares out the window and out into the pouring rain. Books fill her room mostly with a side table full of tools, a mussed-up bed, and a wooden chair. Usually, she'd be up and out and walking endlessly without a plan -there's so much _time_ here- but, not today.

She senses something is here, and not a good one, she adds.

She decides not to go out today.

.

It's a week later that she finally feels- _whatever_ is there dim down to a pitiful level that she decides that now is safe enough for her to go out.

She pulls on her shorts and t-shirt and takes an umbrella with her.

.

.

.

She finds the source of change sitting on the lone bench ahead of her.

(she hasn't seen anyone for a long, long time)

The few who _did_ come, she'd ignore and watch them flitter away, or send them back, with force if necessary. But the way he sits on the metal bench, unmoving and bent over- almost looks like her reflection.

She steps forward and reaches the hooded figure who's facing the ground: white skin, white hair; a black metal uniform stained with red-brown.

 _Ahh_ , she muses with a reluctant sigh, _they're still fighting over there_ ; she raises her umbrella in the air and swings it down.

He looks up at her.

(and he sees a human, probably one who escaped the war to this dreary place; coward, he muses. still, he hopes there are no others.

because then the program would kick in.)

.

She stops half-way and sees his black eyes with yellow irises, empty and faded and flickering. They stare up into her violet irises. She stares back for a moment and notes there is none of what she expects-

-and he really does resemble her, she muses, dying out in the rain.

(but, she wonders if he came here for the same reason she did. well, she lowers her weapon, only one way to find out.)

She offers a hand.

He continues to sit.

She sighs and grabs his hand from his lap and pulls his hand-

-the chords extend from his hand and she takes a longer look: the metal is rusting and stained with a crusty red too -that's probably furthered the rusting process- then back up at him. He doesn't move still, only staring back at her unflinchingly, _or_ she muses, he can't. She walks closer to him again and whispers into his ear, _sorry_ , and quickly races off.

He feels very, very heavy.

(he blanks out again and listens to the rain)

...

...

...

 _thunk_

He flickers awake and sees the same girl set up the large umbrella shade -meant for beaches and sunshine- and nears him, the tools and chunk of metal placed beside her.

She sits beside him and starts replacing and reattaching his hand, a color of white. He focuses his blurring vision and sees details: pale skin, black hair tied into a bun, and -she pauses and gives him a reassuring smile before continuing- dark blue eyes.

(she reminds him of the moon)

Minutes later, she asks him to flex his fingers and move his wrist, and he does, his eyes widen when there's not even a creaking sound in place and that it's easy to move and flex-

-almost like a human.

She smiles at the slight surprise and stands up. She carefully lifts his arms up and pulls the t-shirt up and over his head and nearly falters at the sight of rusting and beaten-up metal, and it _hurts._ He looks away, and waits for the expected.

Silence.

He looks up again and finds her _very_ determined with her stance and the color in her eyes flicker with fire. She races off-

-and this time, he waits.

...

...

...

...

...

...

She comes back with metal in her arms she'd collected from abandoned buildings and places them on the ground. Then she begins unscrewing his metal body parts one by one and replicating them with her new metal by molding it into shape. She drills holes into them and screws them onto him until night falls (-she'd learned by observing the darker shades of the world around her in the rain, she'd know, after living here for so long).

Hours later, she stands up and nearly falls back from the cramp in her aching legs until he grabs her arm and steadies her again. She says her thanks and studies him. The metal is all in place and all right now that she's done, but, something is missing. She frowns and stares at him very intensely, then jumps at a bright idea and demands him to sit and wait for her. He nods; she races off again.

He stands and faces the direction she ran off to.

...

...

...

She races back with paint and excitedly tells him to sit. He does, and she stands on the bench, pulls out a brush, and dips it into orange paint and begins painting his "hair". She doesn't stop until she's done and then she jumps off and stares at him and nods with satisfaction, _brighter is better on you_ , she tells him.

He looks up at her blankly and tells her he thinks it's a gangster-ish color. She laughs and tells him he's an interesting guy.

( _guy_ she'd said, not cyborg; he peers closer at her and she seems brighter and freer than before.

strange.)

She holds out her hand again with a smile, and thinks it's the prettiest he's seen in this dreary world.

He takes it and stands.

...

...

She hums a faint tune that reaches his ears, and he's certain he's heard of it from his world somewhere before he accidentally fell into this world and instantly malfunctioned because of the rain.

(he hates rain- for plenty of reasons, he can't go out, he's handi-capped, he's hopeless and needs another's protection even though _he_ should be protecting-)

She eyes his umbrella in hand with a raised eyebrow and he immediately shakes his head nervously, _nonono, you don't understand, i can't survive in the rain because i'm a-_

In his monologue, she easily snatches his iron grip on his umbrella and flings it away to somewhere up, up, up, and far off that he can't hear its crash. The rain hits him instantly and he grimly awaits for the blackness to take over his vision and for everything to fade out-

...

...

he's still conscious. He moves his fingers, an arm, then a leg, then everything, and he's in complete _awe_. Then, there's a giggle behind him, and he turns and watches her burst out into laughter.

He scowls reflexively, and there's something rising- he looks at the reflection in the puddle, and he remembers -an expression of furrowed eyebrows, a downturn of his mouth- irritation, but there's something light in him as she grabs his hand and leads him to her- well, wherever the hell they were going.

(she'd probably make miracles out of nowhere in hell or heaven-

-as long as she's around.)

.

.

.

tbc


	2. back-and-forth

He enters her territory: a dull metal house like every other one on the street, except hers isn't rusting away into nothing and that hers is inside a factory. She tells him to just dump it in a corner -he pauses at the messy pile of different metal lying around but does so anyways- and opens the door to her room.

He bends down a bit and goes through the doorway and stands perfectly straight again, only to hit the ceiling. She laughs a bit before raising a hand up, a soft blue light flickers brightly and the ceiling climbs higher up. He straightens and stares at her; she notices it and extends her arm to him. Confused, he hesitantly touches her arm and hears that _thunk_ noise. He stares at her again.

She smiles, and he realizes-

 _Half-cyborg_

.

Immediately after, he mentions that all half-cyborgs die within a month or two or even less than that. She responds a bit bitterly that it's the people's fault that they don't care enough to fund technologists specifically for people who need it, though, she sighs, it's not like anyone can anyways since all of them want, or have been turned.

(because who'd want to keep living in a war-centric place as a _human_? it was impossible to survive in such a world where radiation and loss was everywhere and it was too hard for any human to keep on living as a warlike machine forever.

it was so much easier to be a perfect machine that deleted every unnecessary human emotion that only stagnated the war, because then it's easier to follow the motto: kill or be killed.

everyone knew this.)

He pauses, and understands her logic, but something is biting and biting and he needs an immediate answer to get rid of it, so: _where'd you get that arm?_

She grins, _myself_.

He grabs her arm and grips it too tightly, cracking the metal arm a bit, and monotonously: _why didn't you go to our world and help them?_

She stares back at him evenly.

"Why should I?"

...

...

He blinks and wonders why she's using her actual voice when she could just transfer her messages to him inside their brains, being half-cyborg and all.

(he hadn't heard an actual voice in a very long time)

" _Why should I?_ " She asks again with venom, and he flinches from it because there's a difference between hearing the emotions and the monotone messages that are so much easier to decipher logically and easily handle-

He let's her go and doesn't answer.

She answers for him with spite: "Because you want to use them for war again instead of letting them die peacefully and watch them die in that bloody field instead, all of that- _for your fucking pride_."

...

(he doesn't say anything, he _can't_ say anything when her eyes are looking at someone else.)

She turns and shuts the door behind her.

.

.

After a moment, he blinks, and doesn't really know _what_ to do.

No, he does know. The human way is to apologize (for _what_ he's not too sure but he'll figure it out), and already he's feeling a turmoil, because the program would _never_ let him do such a thing.

Because apologizing is equivalent to weakness and uselessness for one's worth and country- is what has been ingrained into him.

(but, what else could he do?)

He walks back and forth and ponders his next step, before logic kicks in: since he's not in the war zone, the rule does not apply to here, a neutral (?) zone; therefore, he does not have to abide by it and can apologize if he sees there's an absolute need to.

So he walks out and finds her on a metal table, replacing some metal here and there from her arm that _he'd_ dented, and he pauses: she's fixing herself.

 _Wouldn't a mechanical, monotonous 'sorry' be useless?_

In his indecisive state, she looks up with a smile, _hello_ , and beckons him to come over.

(logic: he does not need to apologize since she has -seemingly- forgiven him.

he does not need to.)

Throat tight, he stands next to her. She hands him a screw driver and tells him to hold it directly into this nail and then twist it all the way in. He struggles to fit the screw in but the parts _still_ won't fit together. She chuckles a bit before taking his hand and connects the two correctly; he looks closely at it and notes there's not one gap.

Then he twists it in all the way into her arm and pulls away, silently relishing in the fact that she'd helped him apologize effectively without words.

He feels better.

.

A moment later, he hears rapid, short breaths from her and automatically his eyes can see the nerves re-connecting to her arm, he thinks this is one of those 'growing pains'. Reflexively he holds her other hand, firm enough to not hurt her and she grips on tightly. Then her breaths grow longer and slower and his mind is less tense.

She flexes her arm and breathes a sigh of relief; then turns to him with a strange conviction in her eyes, and he wonders what she could possibly do next to catch him off-guard.

(not that it was unpleasing, no.

it was stimulating and fresh.)

.

Finally: "I'm sorry." She says with a clear voice, and it rings in his ears loudly because she did it so easily with such clarity, emotion, and precision that doesn't make him doubt one bit she doesn't mean it-

-and no one, ever, _ever_ apologized to him, before.

( _because to apologize is a sign of weakness and uselessness, to say 'sorry' is to regret, and to regret is to hold back from fighting and to shame your worth and country and everyone as a whole that no one will be happy-_ is what he has been taught.

he thinks, with that apologetic bitter smile on her face and her stance to not fight, that it's not wrong.

but the reduction of a burden proves, it's not quite right either: it's not useless if he's happy, and to him-

-she certainly hasn't grown _weaker_.)

.

Later: "I couldn't distinguish between the past me, and you."

He blinks, then: _oh,_ and in a second, he wonders what similarities there could possibly be when she's a half-cyborg and he's a cyborg, a second later the question is just on the tip of his tongue but swallowed away when he sees the expression on her face.

(he remembers in a sad movie that it is insensitive to ask something that may hurt her further; _excuses_ , he hears from the back of his mind.

he doesn't rebuttal.)

.

But it's not like doing nothing will help either, and there's a temptation to try saying 'thank you', though that too might mean betraying his home country. So again, he forces a logical solution and explanation why he could and it clicks. His vocal chords are released and he tries: "Th-aank you."

And instantly, he feels horrified at how disgustingly atrocious his voice is: robotic and static and monotone like a message, and he never wants to speak again, especially since she's laughing at him.

But, he feels much better than before, and he doesn't know if it's her laughter, his apology itself-

-or that sadness wiped off her face.

.

.

( _"I'll teach you"_ she says later, _"that is, only if you want it"_.

he nods, and retracts his earlier statement.)

.

.

tbc

* * *

a/n: thank you, lovely guests :)


	3. live life

.

.

It's the end of the day, he determines, his eyes picking up the slightest fluctuation of a more prominent darkness in the rainy sky. He leans in her wooden but sturdy chair and gazes out the window. He briefly wonders for a second, why it always rains here; nothing logical comes to mind; he reboots.

It's the end of the day, he re-starts, he'd picked up the pronunciations of English rapidly with ease in 3 days, 37 minutes, and 5 seconds. Well, of course it was easy, all cyborgs had these two convenient skills: 1) data absorption- a way to instill outside info within them instantly and 2) storage: a way to store away whatever data is collected.

But unlike others, he had another ability, and that was the ability to _apply_ it in certain situations in lightning speed. He did not have to go back and search for past data he's collected and then load said file to bring up to the forefront of his memory for use. Instead, all he had to do was 'think', and the file would pop out immediately for him in less than a second.

(very useful.)

Naturally then, he was quickly ranked at the top, and at the front lines at all times. Because of his lightning speed and reflexes, his name came to be known as Lightning. Personally, he thinks it's a dull name, but nonetheless, he served his purpose as someone who struck fear immediately to all those he saw.

He's a superior god on the damn bloody battlefield.

Yet despite the enrichment and superiority he felt at all times before, the last battle felt as if his mind and body were simultaneously shutting down, leading him to fall in the gutter (?) and end up here.

(he's only tired. yes, yes, that's all. after years of winning for them, he deserved at the very least to have a short- a _very_ short vacation before returning.

...

he's only tired.)

.

.

(any more than that and his digital brain would burn up and explode.)

.

.

He turns away from the rain and looks back at her, and realizes that this is the first he's seen a human sleep. He observes: in sleep, she breathes deeply, her mouth is slightly ajar, and her heart beat is slow. It's an emphasis of relaxation and vulnerability.

(it must be nice, he notes, nothing back there allowed him to relax.

hell, his own body won't let him.)

He looks to her neck and thinks it'd be so easy for him to kill her: a hand on the neck, a light squeeze, a snap, and she'd be dead. He eyes the forgotten metal arm; maybe her arm would sense him and attack him beforehand. On impulse, he extends his arm to her neck and hovers over it to try his theory. Nothing. He touches her neck very _very_ lightly and waits. Again, nothing.

He pulls his hand back and shuts his eyes.

(he wonders why she trusts him)

.

.

She wakes up and feels a bit chilly under her neck, strangely (since everything else was warm), but nothing worth worrying about, she decides. She stretches her arm to the front, back, and side, and retracts; then moves her wrist and fingers, and determines her arm is functioning well.

She'd been teaching him, for 3 days now, not counting the breaks he'd make her take, along with a full 8-hour sleep. Although a bit disgruntled for being looked down on (she was a _cyborg_ for goodness' sake by human definition, to which he said she was merely half by the world-back-there definition, and _by the way_ , still required sleep), her eyes would struggle to remain open, and that'd be the end of their bickering.

(for her, being alone wasn't bad, not at all. it was very relaxing and out-of-touch from the modern warfare in the other side of the world, and for that, she was grateful.

but real interaction- that, she had missed.)

She sits up and easily spots him in his chair, eyes closed and face scrunched. She laughs and thinks it's the weirdest thing she's woken up to for a while, minus the shootings and bombings the first time of course.

(the thought passes and goes.

it got easier with time.)

"What are you thinking about?" She asks, chin in hand and smiling. He opens his eyes and observes: making open conversation, slight curiosity.

 _You-_ oops, "you are weird," he states, still remembering the soft tissue and bone under his hand; despite having made contact with her a few times already, he considers this to be his first human touch. The fragility of humans hadn't truly sunk in until he bothered thinking about it.

He could easily kill her.

...

"Why trust me?"

She lightly touches the base of her neck again.

(so she'd been right after all)

"Why not?" she asks. His eyes say it all to her: disbelief at her naivety and _of course_. "You're I-152, front-line attacker of all bases against enemy robots and such. You are to find humans and incomplete cyborgs to kill, yet during all that time, all you've killed were enemy cyborgs. That was nothing but a demo of what you're going to kill, _me_." She grabs his hand and pulls it straight to her neck. " _What are you waiting for?_ "

The program reacts: his eyes flash with a crimson red that he needs to kill _now_ ; it's his mission, it echoes, the file clearly printed across his mind with a highlight in red, the videos demonstrated to show the many ways to kill a human, and-

He remembers: the moment the higher-ups gave him his order, there's that same screeching noise grating against his ears again. The past few weeks he'd ignore it so, and let it die down. But now it is so freakishly loud that he expects them to hear it as well, but they do not order him, much less change expression.

He endures, again.

Still, it grows louder and louder that he can (reluctantly) make out the yelling and screaming to be _no_ and _don't fucking listen_ and _you stupid_ and _stop-_ and then it stops. He breathes a sigh of relief (because he doesn't know how much longer he could stand and listen).

Still, the feeling of something heavy carries on to the next day, and it's a terrible time to be to be a burden when he's at the front lines. He has to drag himself along to mow down enemy robots row after row until after a while, that he wonders why they haven't killed him yet. It's 30 minutes later that he doesn't move.

(he can't.)

When he opens his eyes again, he sees the rain, and _her_.

.

.

 _Not now._

 _._

 _._

His eyes dim down to a flat yellow, and his hand in her grip loses its tense, wavering state between her death and not.

"I have much to learn from you." He says bitingly, refusing to look up. "It's a more effective way to find and kill the rest of you. Until I've gotten that and found my way out, I will not end you." (Yes, this is logical and familiar territory. This is what he means, certainly-)

She releases her iron grip on his wrist. He stares and realizes it's a mere human hand she'd used to grab his arm.

(it'd felt more like a shackle)

He rubs his wrist automatically to tear away the prison-like feeling. She leans her head against his shoulder and wraps her hand around his. When it's becoming uncomfortably warm, he shuffles a bit to move away; she pulls him back down and tells him to stay for a bit. Against his wishes, he feels the sensation of flesh and bone and fragility again, except this time, there's also warmth, and strength.

(a contradiction, he notes, an irritating feeling.)

He does, however, understand it's her way of consoling him.

.

Or not, he corrects; she -out of fucking nowhere- drags him into the rain (and for someone so small and fragile, she was strong enough to get _him_ moving). But instead of the instantaneous dread, he feels at peace. He supposes it's adaptation, he thinks while staring at her: arabesques and pirouettes in crooked, imperfect positions (critically speaking from his cyborg view). But the freeness and flow in her movements are much more preferred than the rigid and stiffness he's seen.

(it's- _she's_ an expression of self, he notes.)

He, she -he doesn't know who's first- catches each other's eyes and he's dragged to her pace: a dance of her own that's _far_ from perfect. Yet, she does not give a single shit in the world as she smiles and pulls him into a strange mix of waltz, tango, and ballet; a basic of: fuck the rules. From all this new, weird things she's throwing at him in seconds, it's becoming harder and harder for him to wrap all of this-

(he dips her and finds it fascinating: the short breaths of exhaustion, the rain drops glistening on her face, the big smile, and the very, very live eyes of exhilaration.)

He tosses away rationality, and lives in the moment.

* * *

a/n: to the guests and guest2, really, thanks you :)


	4. migraine

.

.

The rain is light today, she voices, raising a hand up to the sky; very, very light, she adds, trying to convince him that sleeping out on the roof _is_ safe for her (which only infuriates her more). She tells him that even _his_ logic will support hers.

And it's true, he calculates, it's a 0.1% chance for her to get a speck of rain on her hand or body, and if it does, it evaporates in 1 second. He eyes her small shorts and tank top; she has an even lesser chance -specifically 0.001%- to catch a damn cold.

Still, it's not a complete 0%, so: he pushes the quilt closer to her and tells her just that with a monotone voice (and she knows if he uses _that_ tone, he's had it with her antics). She gives him a big huff before taking it out of his hands- and flattens it out comfortably on the ground before lying on it.

(as if she'd give in _that_ easily)

He gives her an exasperated look; she smiles brightly and pulls him down to her level before placing a part of the quilt over his chest. She lies her head on it and asks him if she's warm.

...

...

(this fucking devil, he swears)

"No," he says stubbornly, three seconds too late; she chuckles and snuggles closer. As the night grows darker still, something else shines brightly, and he pauses and stares at those glowing crystal-like things. Curiousity strikes and he peers closer to find that they were far and gigantic.

"They're stars," she explains, catching his awe-struck gaze. "Giant balls of energy in the galaxy that burn bright until they burn out and die. It's a lot like these candles-" -and she goes on and on about them in the tone that catches him off-guard, because he thought there was no way she could speak _again_ with such enthusiasm and energy from that time with English (the first time already had caught him off-guard as all teachers back then were monotone and such). But the more she talks, the more he's forced to acknowledge the 'impossible' once again.

Well, he concludes when she stops and let's the silence take them; he stares closer at the glowing things, she's certainly a lot like them; high energy and such until she-

...

..

.

(ahh, he sighs and acknowledges: he really doesn't want to think about it.)

.

.

He looks down at the sleeping figure before him and finds her sleeping yet again. Yet unlike last time, there's a strange emotion that he can no longer deny when even his line is skipping a beat. He thinks back to the educational system he'd taken, and doesn't recall anything of it in his data box. He frowns, a bit frustrated now that he has to acknowledge this and cannot find the answer yet.

 _Cute_

He blinks twice, and wonders for a second why her voice popped up before realizing that this is what she described when she points at the live rabbits before him while hunting; specifically stating that he cannot and will not kill them, not even for food. When he'd asked why, she just simply said that they were cute to her and thus, could not be eaten by her or him (since he's staying under her roof).

Although this answers only half of his question, and although it's probably not the whole answer he's looking for, he's surprised to feel satisfied that he can at least come up with _something_.

(he thinks this is the feeling of pride people feel from coming up an answer after hard work- or in his case, a very long thought)

But this something, he looks back down at her and knows instinctively, must come from being with her. (why? he asks, and to his begrudgement, he cannot find the answer again; he tosses it away).

Nonetheless, he concludes that she could not possibly be of any danger to him, much less his country if she could be this harmless, vulnerable, and teaching-worthy.

(he wonders for a second if he could convince them with this 'logic'- and it's a second enough for: _fuck no,_ he hears, _are you stupid? you'll just get killed that way, not to mention she'll for sure then-_

shut up, he replies stiffly, and the migraine leaves.)

.

.

.

* * *

a/n: to the guests, thank you~ (better appreciation on profile for reviewers if interested :) )


	5. venture backwards

1: exactly 2:30 pm, 30 s, and 20 ms, his ears do not pick up the sound of rain pattering on the cement. His eyes stop reading the page about murderers and philosophy and whatnot, and turns his gaze to the window and his vision confirms that indeed, the entire world right here and now is lacking the clouds and rain. Instead, there is a brightly-lit sun, a clear blue sky, and greenery flashing before him everywhere.

To put it simply, it's another beauty of its own; not at all like the glass, constructed world that he grew up in.

.

.

(he wonders if they'd accidentally teleported to another world.)

.

2: "Hey."

Her voice rings to him and he immediately senses a difference: an extremely low-pitched tone that he would've merely inferred as another voice altogether if he hadn't associated it with her and the emotion: sadness.

And indeed, when he turns to look at her, everything about her is unusual: a tank top, cargo pants, and leather boots, not: a one-piece dress with an umbrella in hand. He raises his eyes and is surprised to find the imprinted expression of his world: cold and dull.

.

(but unlike them, her expression is never without emotional reason.)

.

.

3: He places the book back in her shelf just as she walks into her room and sets herself down in the metal chair. He watches the glass slip away at her touch and let the rays of light warm the room. She brings out a sharp, small knife that glints in the sun's rays.

"I'm going to my friend's funeral." She says casually as she slices her bit-too-long hair with a small knife and tosses it out the window and into the world. He watches the birds take a few and fly off into the forest ahead of them, and with his eyes, he senses the carcass is somewhere there.

(still, he wonders why she needs to visit the dead. a human tradition, is all he can infer, because anyone dead in his world were immediately disposed of and usually forgotten.

...

if she successfully kills him, would she do the same as well?

.

.

the migraine does not answer.)

.

He looks up at her again and sees that she is still trimming away with the knife; but there's a troubling edge to her eye that makes him intuitively know it's related to the carcass she's visiting.

( _murderer_ , he hears.)

"Mur-der-eer," he pronounces, trying to make sense of the word. His eyes catch the knife beginning to cut into the direction of where her hand is gripping her hair, and immediately he shoves a hand in-between the knife and her hand. She raises an eyebrow.

"You were about to slice your hand. I know your movements." He explains simply. "I have to watch after all."

And it's a reminder that he's here to predict human's movements and emotions in order to immediately counteract them successfully. She drops her gaze and throws another knife at him, which he catches just as easily without moving an inch. In those few seconds of distraction, he finds her up and leaning forward, staring straight-up at him from her short stance; she's grown a bit by 1.2342 foot, enough for her forehead to reach his chin, and her face is very very close, and her eyes are peering into him-

(-very uncomfortable.)

.

.

 _you're lying._

.

.

He has to blink twice before realizing he's heard two voices in unison of the same line before he steps back and quickly moves to leave. She grabs his hand before he can do so and for a moment he wonders if she's always been able to read him or something and-

"It's murderer." She says simply, not emphasizing too much on the last 'er'; and her empathetic eyes makes him wonder just what is it today that's making her despair and slightly angry. Before he can say anything, she takes the knife from his hands and turns away, shoving the knife back to its place.

.

.

.

4: "Do you want to come with me?" She finally asks, her hand on the knob in preparation. He watches her and finds her gesture to be sincere -not that it ever _wasn't_.

(it's just this time, he senses something's a bit...different.)

"I thought you wouldn't want me around." He says honestly, watching her yet go still again (except now there is no knife in hand for her to slip up and cut herself).

"You're right," she says bluntly, "but I figured I'd be nice today." She ends it off with a light grin on her face that doesn't quite reach her eyes, and he wonders if he should've just said no. But before he can consider it, she opens the door and walks away, leaving the door wide open for him.

He takes the opportunity.

.

.

5: "Oy! Slow down!" She barks, and he complies, moving back ten steps and wonders why she's walking at such a slow, fucking pace -3.1 mph he quickly adds on- when she could normally walks at 5 mph. Like before, he increases his endurance levels, which is to deter his emotions and complaints and all of that aside (and it had successfully dulled his impatience at her pace of 5 mph).

He frowns after a mere nine slow, _so-fucking_ - _slow_ steps, and realizes that increasing his endurance levels for this freakin' turtle pace is not doing shit for him. He turns to the side and watches her, hands in pockets, eyes looking forward with a soft gaze, lowered shoulders, and a back leaning at 0.9 degrees more than usual.

(how the fuck is she so _calm_ at this pace?)

Relax, her voice intercepts his thoughts smoothly, _look around yourself, take your time._

Her order is the exact opposite of what he's been taught, he muses, but order or not, he finds himself actively absorbing in his surroundings: his eyes taking the beauty of it in, his ears in tune with the soft padding of the still-somewhat wet ground (a sun couldn't immediately dry up weeks of non-stop rain), and her light but reckless steps in the soil.

(he finds it very different from the usual of: letting his digital brain take it all in and alert him if there's anything odd.)

...

...

...

 _(oh.)_

His eyes refocus on the desolate, gray town ahead of him that's shrouded with trees, moss, fungi, and everything that's possibly a deep shade of green. Despite that, his vision fades away to a busier time where it was alive and full of children and adults bustling about happily.

It's the 'migraine's' abandoned town, he finalizes, then: human.

(a calm feeling spreads throughout his body and deep within him; he knows it's not his at all.

...

it never was.)

"How are you feeling?"

He pries his eyes away from the nostalgic scenery and turns to her; his line beeps again at the genuine concern that stuns him to the core, and this time, he believes it to be his own, until the human protests; in which he changes to that it's the both of them: the human and the machine.

(as a machine, he could adjust to that; he always did before, and now was no different, so:)

He ruffles her hair, "It's not like you to worry, according to my stats."

"Oh shut up." She says light-heartedly, slapping his hand away. They share a smile to each other before hers drops first and gives him a determined stare that he- the human, recognizes with that determination infusing within him as well. She walks off, hands behind her head. "Let's go."

.

.

.

He notes that as he walks closer, the grayness seems to fade away from the scenery, and instead, there's more color (besides the green and brown and such) than he'd expected. As he continues, he finds a long, grassy road with long-deteriorated paper walls and concrete fusing together after long periods of erosion and such, he concludes. Nostalgia runs through him and flashbacks of a running river beside him as he walks back home with a schoolbag in hand. Next to him-

She stops, he stops, and looks up. It's a two-story building that's held itself up quite well for its age (about a hundred he thinks); upon closer inspection, he notes some foreign metal objects attached to the building that keep it up unlike the rest of the areas.

"You're too kind." He finally says; she only chuckles and mutters something _for me_ and goes ahead first, ducking under the branch and in. He decides to explore the human's home without her guidance; after all that annoying pain in his head, he muses, the human's mind could be of use to him after all.

.

.

(she needs space right now.)

.

.

He bends down and crawls into the opening of what was once a door, probably. Once inside, he stands up and hits his head slightly; he hears a giggle from upstairs and scowls before resuming his glance around the room. Kitchen: a little girl humming softly as she stirs a pot; dining room: an older, hyper man eating along with the two girls and himself; stairs: he follows Ichigo's footsteps.

.

.

( _Ichigo_ , he murmurs the name carefully, then: _really, strawberry?_

 _shut it,_ and he laughs.)

.

.

He stops at the top and surveys the area: 3 doors, same width and height, different rooms. After some debating and the human sighing impatiently, he takes three steps down the hall and opens the door. A once-girly room with pink walls and two beds; the sisters' room, he concludes. He sees fuzzy visions of what they once did here, or human interaction; but he cannot see their faces, other than the back of their head. He blinks once more, and he's no longer inside the room and observing; he's outside with the door closed.

(he thinks it's the human's doing, but he moves on to the next without asking, anything to escape that tightness pulling at him inside.)

.

.

He opens the next door with a building tension that he doesn't understand. He breathes deeply once and waits stiffly before shifting away automatically, before realizing no one is attacking him. He pauses, _what was that?_ The human responds with a few images, and he makes it out to be a habit from a harmless but too-happy-go-lucky man that always jumped at him without warning.

He chuckles at the prospect for a bit before refocusing himself into the room; and unsurprisingly finds it to be a goofy man's typical room: a bright poster of a woman, a clown's suit in the closet, an album of all his children, etc, etc. He finds the girls' faces and his father's face, and finally the flood reels him back to the time of when they celebrated his birthday in a manner he couldn't appreciate as a teenager; and more and more of happy times until-

He blinks, and is no longer in the room. He walks away quickly again before it twists and tighten and take hold of his entire being.

.

.

Finallyfinallyfinally, he reaches the last door with the sign '15' and proceeds to yank the door open before sensing her presence just behind it. He takes a deep breath and composes himself before twisting the doorknob and quietly swinging the door open.

.

.

(making her worry is, and still isn't, an option.)

.

.

The metal is everywhere, he notes, in every corner of the room, the bed, the table, light, hell, even the small table. She put a lot of work into this, he thinks quietly; the human sends a silent appreciation to her using his brain, to his slight indignation. But, he'd let it slide this one time.

(she deserved it after all.)

After walking around the room and picking up nostalgia from certain items, he finally allows himself to look at her, sitting at the foot of his bed, perfectly still and unmoving that unnerves him. The tension leaves when she motions to sit by her, and he does, looking down at the floor.

"How are you feeling?" She asks for the second time, and he makes the mistake of looking into her eyes instead of just analyzing her tone and inferring from that (stupid human, he mutters lowly).

"Strange," he admits, "Ichigo's forced to live within me, and I, with him. It's the first time I've heard of this, so I don't know how to deal with it properly."

"There aren't any instructions that can help you cope, unfortunately; it's an individual case." She says before standing and tilting on the balls of her feet with her arms behind her. "What do you want to do?"

Before, the options lying before him would make him uncomfortable, because it has always been for him: follow this, follow that, obey the orders and do nothing yourself. But something is different now, so it's alarmingly easy to say: "I want to find these pieces he's trying so hard to cover up."

She grips his hands and follows with an "ok" before the entire room dyes in black.


	6. there is no darkness without light

.

.

It's a second later that his eyes spot the dimmest light ahead; it's another second later that everything glows up in blue, purple, green- a whole range of the color spectrum that keeps him in awe. He looks around himself and sees himself floating in mid-air amongst all the colors around him. _How is this possible?_

"This is inside your body, or to be more specific, inside the wires that you call 'veins'." Her voice reaches him and he turns to the sound; startled to find that her own body is transparent and nearly blends in with the colors. But it's her, he knows, even if his brain rejects it. "I touched your hand and synchronized my mechanical arm to your body. It makes it easier for me to drag our conscience together here."

"So, we're here to dig up these memories he's hiding." He follows after quickly; she confirms with a nod. "How are we going to do that?"

Without a word, he follows her index finger below her and feels somewhat light-headed as the black dot ahead of them becomes bigger and bigger and- they're being dragged towards it, he quickly realizes. He instantly lifts his gaze from the dark hole to her face, and finds what he needs: calm, tranquility, reassurance. His alert levels lower and he looks back at the blackness beneath him.

(if she wasn't worried, neither should he.)

He shuts his eyes and let's the vortex swallow them whole.

.

.

.

 _"Ichi-nii!"_

He registers the voice and opens his eyes reflexively. Everything around him is a solid black that leaves him to fix his eyes a little with a few turns and switches here and there. The world around him is still gray, but this time he can make out a sole figure waving at him from a foot away. Strange, he notes, and he changes his palette again. His surroundings grow brighter, brighter, and brighter, until he can no longer ignore the strangeness that is her face. He stares at the blank palette of a face and wonders if humans regularly didn't have a face and if she was the exception. _She_ , he remembers and swiftly looks around him; no sign of her.

"Ichi-niiii!"

He hears the shrill closer and takes in how close she is with how her arms are suddenly up and around him in a tight hug. If he hadn't been so focused on the lack of 'face', he would've already made out: brown hair in two short pigtails, blue-and-white uniform(?), knee-white socks, and a pair of brown shoes, before this. He curses himself for his lack of attention to detail, but not for long as the girl in front of him leaps back and jumps up and down excitedly. "You finally came for me Ichi-nii!"

"...I'm not Ichi-nii," he says slowly, unable to recall any previous lessons among thousands and millions of them about situations like these and thus slower in response; did he look that similar to this person? "Sorry."

"W-what?" She leans towards him, peering but without any features to do so. "But-but you're Ichi-nii, even if you dyed your hair white and look different, you're my brother."

"I'm sorry," he repeats, unsure what else to say to this clearly confused and soon-to-be disappointed girl. "I'm sorry," he says again, and this time he isn't sure why he's still saying it.

She stills instantly and pushes him away; the sudden change of mood shocks him in place and he isn't fast enough to react to the sudden physical (threatening?) action. Intently focused on her entire form, he watches her lift a small, shaking index finger at him. Her entire body trembles as her vocal chords shake with venom: " _You._ "

"I'm sorry," he hears the heavy tone from his vocal chords, and this time he swears he's not in control as he chokes out another: "I'm sorry."

"Robot!" She shrieks loudly and accusingly, and on cue, her features delve back, forming a face (finally); but the relief immediately dissipates as he takes in the imminent hatred in her large, doe eyes that stare at him intensely with an animalistic killing intent for blood, his blood. He decides he doesn't like it on a human's face: uneven, distorted, and ugly with hatred, not at all like the demo's emotionless expression. Very uncomfortable. "How dare you imitate him! You _monster!_ "

She leaps at him and his reflexes kick in; fist meets skin and bones and blood; shattering all over the black floor beneath him. He stares at the human on the ground and marvels at how incredibly weak humans truly are, just like in the videos and the time he'd pressed a cool, metal palm lightly against her soft neck. She, he remembers again, and he wonders if this is what he'll see when he has to kill her: uneven, distorted, and ugly.

(he doesn't know if he could do it.)

Then, a fleeting image of her lying lifeless before him within her own pool of blood flashes by; until he forces his vision to dim and blur and cave in to the surrounding black around him that is real. To the warning signals flashing before him in his mind: _fuck you._

.

The carcass is an _it_ and it is _dead_ and it is _not_ _her_.

.

(so there is no point on dwelling upon it.)

his levels are blue = neutral.

.

.

 _._

 _"Why?"_

He turns and forces himself to clear his vision again, faster this time since he'd automatically saved the settings; but in that split-second before his vision completely recovers, he cuts out the carcass from his peripheral vision as another it stands there, hands shaking at its sides. He observes: black hair in a ponytail with bangs on the side framing its face; like it, 'it' wears no face and dons on the same uniform as it. His alert levels climb higher.

"Why?" 'Its' voice wobbles. "Answer me, Ichi-nii!"

( _again? who the hell is this "Ichi-nii"?_ )

He looks back at 'it' and wonders if maybe 'it's' just a clone of its personality but with different appearances; considering that 'it' is not threatening him, yet. He resorts to saying nothing so he wouldn't escalate the situation and resort to killing 'it'; he shuts off his vocal chords and tucks them away into the 'recycle bin' so his voice can reprocess and fix itself.

(this way, he wouldn't have to kill her- fuck, he curses, itit _'it'_.)

"I'm sorry." His mouth is open, his vocal chords are up and working again despite still being processed in the recycle bin, all without his permission, and he wonders if he could pull out his chords and effectively silence himself without committing unintentional suicide.

"That's not good enough Ichi-nii," 'it' pleads, snapping him out of his thoughts, "You told me we could see each other again! But look at you! Look at your goddamn self! You're a robot, Ichi-nii! And you killed Yuzu!"

Then 'its' face comes together to dark brown eyes filled with tears that threaten to stream down its face but won't because she wants to be strong. She wants to be strong, he repeats to himself, because of their mother and him and the family- she has to take care of them.

She has to be the stronger one.

And he connects the dots: Ichigo is Ichi-nii, their older brother- Yuzu's, and Karin's; and he'd just killed Yuzu. Yuzu is his sister. _No_ , he corrects, she's an it who wanted to kill him so he defended himself, yes. Yes, yes, _yes_.

(threatening humans, he recalls, must be destroyed.)

But then he doesn't know what to do with 'it'; he stares at 'it' in front of him and cannot find anything, not one reasonable excuse to get rid of 'it' when 'it's' just a weak, crying girl who's trying to stay strong. Unlike the other girl, she's not mad, hell she's not even throwing herself at him.

She is only sad.

(and his program is not reacting.)

He stands there and watches her for a while, the betrayal being imprinted into his stupidly clear vision no matter how much he tries to dim it or erase it. A minute passes and he feels his skin crawl as she keeps staring at him with the same eyes like he'd done something wrong, like _he'd_ been the one who'd killed Ichigo.

(he doesn't like it, the program reacts.)

Without another thought, his eyes turn red and he appears in front of 'it' in a matter of nanoseconds and snaps 'its' neck, instantly killing 'it'. 'It' drops to the ground; he dims and blurs his vision.

(just another 'it', he muses.)

.

.

 _"H-h-he-e-el-lo, I-I-I-chi-go-o-o."_

He looks up from it and re-focuses his vision for the next ''it'', target assembled; blast it apart in order to fully demolish one of his kind- he pauses, his red irises dimming back to the usual yellow and let's the information sink in, _one of his kind?_

 _(since when did Ichigo know a robot?)_

He'd assumed that humans like Ichigo had been transferred into a robot like him, not _familiarizing_ with one; and then he realizes that the robot hadn't send him a message through his mind, the robot had spoken.

 _A first-generation_ , he realizes, though he hadn't been informed that humans then had been familiarized with them as well. They hadn't told him that.

(they hadn't told him a lot of things since he's been with her.)

"H-h-he-e-el-lo, I-I-I-chi-go-o-o."

He notes that she repeats the same line with the same slow, static pronunciation again and again and again as she -he determines from her voice- rolls towards him in a wheelchair in her pale blue rags. Her gray, rusted metal parts reminds him of the state he was in before coming here; and he feels a sort of indignation and sympathy for her.

When she calls for Ichigo again, he can feel the creaking of her throat and the strength it takes for her to even try speaking that he wonders why she bothers at all. He knows how hard it is to speak; he knows it must hurt what with that poor excuse of metal covering her throat. He watches, and listens intently.

"P-puh-lea-ss-e."

His hearing intensifies by a hundred-fold and he feels his mind crackle; he feels it and he wonders if he's going to die from over-heating his brain, with all those blaring warning signals lighting up inside his mind.

He feels a shaky, rusted metal grip his wrist; weak as it is, it catches his attention and the way she's so weak and scarred and rusted makes him want to pull away and run. Still, he doesn't.

(he doesn't know why.)

"K-k-i-il-ll m-me-eee." He feels her knobby metal fingers tighten her hold on his wrist and he feels the the return of a shackle on his wrist. He looks up and mistakenly looks into her light gray eyes that focus on him intently and pleads him, and it's so damn familiar-

-except they'd asked for mercy, not death.

Still, he knows how to kill robots, emotionlessly, mercilessly, he knows- but only because they were a threat to his country, only because they told him to; so, he didn't have to end her after all. He doesn't assist suicide, he doesn't, but right now he wonders if he should with the way she seems to be suffering. All the options go through his head and he feels his mind heat up even more-

"Sh-shi-ni-gam-mi." He startles at the title and wonders how long it has been since someone has called him that; that, being his first name, and how the hell does she know his name? Her tight grip on his wrist increases and he feels the metal of her fingers rattle and shake, before it falls off. Instantly, he breaks away from her hand and in the process rips off her robotic arm as it lands on the ground. He stares at her with a cautious look, his eyes flashing red.

(never ever, _ever_ , let a robot's insides touch you directly or be electrocuted, especially if it is rusting, he recalls.)

The female robot in front of him begins laughing despite the rusting metal beginning to drop from her body; his alert levels climb to the max as she continues to bob her head up and down as the laughter takes ahold of her. Finally, after what seems like an eternity a mere five minutes could be, he feels the heat in her brain from the over-exertion end her laughter and herself. Her head drops to the ground along with the rest of the pieces that had fallen.

He stares at the scene, unable to look away like the other times, and stands there for a very, very long time. He's killed demos, but none of them had functioning souls then like this woman did; he knows that. He realizes this is the first time he's seen a robot die like this, and he isn't sure why he's still standing here instead of turning off the lights and looking away. Instead, his body moves and begins picking up her arm from the other side before going back to pick up the other pieces.

.

.

 _"Shinigami."_

He hears and turns to the human man he'd seen in the picture; and suddenly he remembers an always-smiling, warm woman that took his tiny hand to heaven; and that that she-robot was the wife of Ichigo's father. "Don't bring her back, please."

And something about Ichigo's father seems very calm, unlike every other family member he's met, he decides he likes- _Isshin_ , he recalls from the room. Isshin walks towards him, and stops right in front of him before lifting a hand to pat his shoulder in sympathy. "Ichigo's caused a lot of trouble for you huh."

"Yes, he has." He says without thinking, and he watches the man that's supposed to be the comedian of the family look pathetically exhausted. He didn't like those eyes, the kind that seemed like he'd let the so-called "heavy" things affect him.

(but maybe if he had, maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't be this way now.)

"It's not your fault y'know," Isshin puts the cigarette between his lips and takes a long drag before letting out a puff of smoke, "You were programmed to be that way."

He's right, he muses, the instinct to kill whatever is a threat to his country or to himself is ingrained within him, but he cannot deny the memories he's made with Rukia that put the teachings in him out-of-whack. "...I suppose so."

Isshin watches him for a second longer than normal that makes I-152 look back at him, questioning the dumbfounded look on his face; then: "You hesitated, you didn't accept it immediately which you should be doing. Hell, it'd make more sense if you were confused and got pissed off; but you _hesitated_." He throws the cigarette down and stomps on it. "'the fuck's going on there?"

"Rukia. That's what happened," and I-152 finally understands why his vocal chords aren't working properly ( _ahh, so that's her name_ ). Isshin's face grows colder still at hearing the voice of his son, and he remembers seeing the same face on Rukia when he'd asked why she didn't participate in the war. He remembers and wonders if what Ichigo did could be as bad as what he did.

(he wonders if he killed too.)

"I see, so you didn't manage to successfully kill her as you said you would." Isshin says curtly, and I-152 feels a sudden pain emerge from within; still, it doesn't distract him from the question of: _since when did Ichigo want to kill her?_ He remembers clearly that it had been Ichigo's voice that had prevented him from activating his program and stopped him from killing her; another contradiction, but oddly enough, he is calmer about it.

(adaptation, he thinks.)

"Yeah, but I can now." Ichigo says flatly, and I-152 wonders why his voice is so damn _monotone_. "The only problem is this robot's program, thanks to the stupid girl's influence. She not only repaired this body, but also tweaked something in it to make it suit her. She damaged the program."

"She's trouble like always," Isshin chuckles, then sighs. "When are you going to stop this farce son?"

"This is no farce, only war," Ichigo says lowly, "She betrayed me and left the fight after working with me in the lab making perfect robots for people to be transferred into so they could live for eternity! Most of the people wanted it, and those that didn't after a while adjusted to it. The world's working perfectly fine but this bitch still isn't-"

"Stop lying, Ichigo." He cuts in abruptly. "If they've adjusted to it so as you say, if they're to live in eternity, then why do half of them die anyways? And even if they're alive so to say, what's the point of living if you're just there to serve orders? Hell, if the world's perfect, then why did I-152 suddenly appear within this body of yours? Something's malfunctioning."

"Don't talk like Kuchiki," he demands abruptly, "She asked too many questions, just like you. Robots are perfect for people like us, especially since we're vulnerable to death."

"Masaki was just fine as she is," He pierces him down with a glare, "then you had the nerve to try and revive her and make her suffer more."

" _Mom?_ That wasn't _Mom_ ," Ichigo laughs, "It was a failure, so obviously that was not my mother. You know that."

"...I failed you as your father." Isshin says, crushing the box of cigarettes all together, then he stands upright and tall and walks towards him. Ichigo just stands there, with disapproving eyes, as Isshin gives him a pitiful look before his eyes look elsewhere. "I-152, you're in there right?"

"What are you-"

"I-152," he places his hand on his shoulder again and knocks his forehead against his, and gives him a grin he recognizes from the photo, "save him for me all right?"

.

.

When I-152 is in control again, he finds his arm bloodied and a large hole through the man's chest and his other arm still holding the female- Masaki's mechanic parts. He looks at it and places her on the floor beside the father and stares at them for a long, long time.

.

.

.

"I-152," he hears, just as he feels a warm grip on his hand and turns to find her, his mind automatically connecting face and name together: she - Rukia. He looks back at the couple and cannot resist the sinking feeling that comes after feeling numb.

"You're hurt," she says quietly as she reaches for his bloodied arm; he pulls that arm away from her and tells her, _it's not my blood, not that i have any_. Unfazed, she leans closer and grabs that arm; her hand transforms to a small metal tube, and he watches her spray it down his arm, the blood disintegrating into the air.

(he remembers the feeling of being saved.

.

his arm does not break.)

Her mechanical arm returns to normal and he watches her examine and touch his body with the eyes and hands of a scientist, and remembers Ichigo's words; but, the concern laced in her eyes and her hands that gently press against his body contradict with everything he knows is a scientist. She stands up and asks him to lower his head for her, and when he does, he feels her palms smoothly move from his hair, neck, and face. She keeps her hands on his face and searches his eyes before wrapping her arms around him. It takes a few seconds for him to process the essential difference between Yuzu's embrace and hers: this is meant for him and only him. He watches the light grow stronger still around the both of them and feels an incredible warmth consume him.

Minding his own strength, he returns it and hopes it's just as warm.

.

.

a/n: OMFGJASJFKSJ;FSLJOL I GOT THIS CHAPTER DONE. *inner party*

Guest: LOL I didn't even think of it as a plot twist 'cause it was in my head the whole time already xD Nah, it's good to surprise people out of nowhere :D Thank you very much! I try every day xD


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